Acute food shortage, people raid ant hills in East Darfur

An acute shortage of staple food in Sheiria locality, East Darfur, is forcing people to dig into ant hills in search of stored sorghum grains. The director of the Department of Disaster Prevention of the Sudanese Red Crescent in Sheiria, Ibrahim Yahya, told the press on Tuesday that the locality is suffering from an acute lack of grains. He said that the citizens are currently buying sorghum now by a ratul (a pound) instead of a malwa (3 kg). The price of a large sack (about 100 kg) of sorghum has risen to SDG750 ($130), and 50 kg of dried okra to SDG2,200 ($385). The Commissioner of Sheiria locality, Mustafa Yousif, said that the main cause of the food gap is the lack of rain during the last agricultural season. He announced that support is underway, arranged by the Sudanese Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), for the residents of Sheiria. File photo: It can take decades for a colony of ants to build a hill of this size (Shutterstock Images) Related: ‘Huge food gaps in South and North Darfur’: officials (6 May 2014)